A family nurse practitioner in Fairmont, West Virginia, is facing criminal fraud charges after Marion County deputies say she talked multiple people into personal loans for medical equipment she never bought — and never repaid. Traci Tannehill, 58, who worked at Phoenix Rising Healthcare, was arrested and booked into North Central Regional Jail, with bond set at $100,000.
The pitch, according to deputies
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office says Tannehill approached people directly, framing the requests as short-term “investment opportunities” tied to her practice. In one example detailed by investigators, she texted a woman asking to borrow $2,000 toward a discounted $15,000 ultrasound machine, promising to repay the loan over three months plus $1,000 in interest. Deputies say the same pattern repeated with other victims: a request built around a specific piece of equipment, a promise of quick repayment with interest, and then no equipment and no repayment that followed.
In Marion County alone, deputies say victims are out roughly $45,000. Tannehill is charged with four counts of obtaining money by false pretenses and one count of fraudulent schemes. She has not entered a plea, and — as with anyone facing charges that have not been proven in court — is presumed innocent unless and until a judge or jury finds otherwise.
Already in civil court
The criminal charges aren’t the first time Tannehill’s borrowing has ended up in front of a judge. Investigators say they found three existing civil suits filed against her by people who say she asked them for loans and never paid them back — a history that, if it holds up, suggests the pattern deputies describe in the criminal complaint didn’t start with this case.
Neither Tannehill nor Phoenix Rising Healthcare has publicly responded to the criminal charges. It isn’t yet clear from available court records whether the practice itself is a party to any of the pending civil suits, or whether the loan requests deputies describe were made in Tannehill’s personal capacity, her professional one, or some mix of both.
What makes a pitch like this work isn’t sophistication — it’s the credential. “I’m a nurse practitioner, I run a clinic, I need $2,000 toward equipment” is a sentence that gets trust a stranger’s version of the same ask never would. If a colleague, a patient, or anyone else ever asks you to personally loan them money for “the practice,” treat that request exactly like you’d treat any other personal loan to someone you don’t fully control — get it in writing, or don’t do it — because the license that makes the ask sound credible offers you zero protection if it goes the way deputies say this one did.
What comes next
Tannehill’s criminal case now moves through the Marion County courts; the felony fraudulent-schemes count and the false-pretenses counts each carry the potential for prison time if she is convicted. The three pending civil suits are a separate track entirely — even if the criminal case moves slowly, those plaintiffs can keep pursuing repayment through the civil courts regardless of how the criminal charges are resolved. It also isn’t yet clear whether West Virginia’s nursing board has opened its own review of Tannehill’s license, which, like South Carolina’s board process in similar cases, would run independently of the criminal case.